Alexander Aleinikoff will succeed the popular Judith Areen as head of Georgetown’s Law Center, the University announced last Thursday. A former Georgetown Law professor, Aleinikoff will assume the office this June.
Aleinikoff first joined the Georgetown faculty as an adjunct professor of law in 1997. In his first year, he said, he was impressed by the school’s location in Washington and worldly student body. “Georgetown students to me are a little more involved in the world, and seem to have had more of a real world experience,” he said.
Aleinikoff said he hopes to build on this global interest by adding a new international emphasis to the Law Center’s curriculum. “One new focus of the law school will be the role of law in a globalizing world. Increasingly our graduates are seeing that they’re involved in work that crosses international boundaries,” he said.
Aleinikoff’s appointment brings to a close a long search process that began in January 2003, when Areen announced her intention to return to the Georgetown faculty. Aleinikoff’s impressive resume as well as his unusual dual specialties in both immigration and constitutional law, she said, made him stand out in the choice of candidates for the position.
The new Dean’s past positions include 15 years as a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, four years as General Counsel and then Executive Associate Commissioner for Programs of the U.S Immigration and Naturalization Service, and his present position as professor of law at the Law Center.
Areen and Aleinikoff have known each other for 15 years, Areen said, since serving together in the Carter Administration.
“He’s both an outsider and an insider at Georgetown, and he’s had an experience running a very complex and large institution,” she said.
As General Counsel for the INS, Aleinikoff was responsible for all legal matters involving immigration and the federal government. “It was an interesting time to be involved in immigration,” he said. He dealt with several high profile issues including the 1994 controversy over an influx of thousands of Cuban refugees that surpassed an immigration limit and California’s enactment of Proposition 187, which denied public benefits to illegal immigrants.
While the Law Center does not suffer from the same financial challenges that face the rest of the University, he said, it must continue to fight to maintain its acknowledged status as one of the top law programs in the country. “The challenges are maintaining our edge as a law center that competes with the best,” he said.
Areen has been Dean of the Law Center and Executive Vice-President for Law Affairs at Georgetown since 1989. Several notable changes to the Law Center under her tenure include an expansion of the number of endowed faculty chairs by 45, the creation of a self-contained downtown campus for the Law Center and increased financial aid programs. She is widely credited with making Georgetown’s law program into one of the most competitive in the country.
“We’re one of the top law institutions in the country, but we don’t want to be just like Harvard or Stanford,” she said, referring to two well-known law programs, “We want to be the best that Georgetown can be, which includes building on our Jesuit tradition and Washington location.”
